Zapatista Spring: Anatomy of a Rebel Water Project & the Lessons of International Solidarity

Description

Eight volunteers converge to help campesinos build a water system in Chiapas—a strategy to bolster the Zapatista insurgency by helping locals to assert their autonomy. These outsiders come to question the movement they’ve traveled so far to support—and each other—when forced into a world so unlike the poetic communiqués of Subcomandante Marcos—a world of endemic rural poverty, parochialism, and shifting loyalties to the movement. The quiet dignity of the local compañeros and echoes of B. Traven, Conrad, and Camus, round out this epic yarn.

“Ramor Ryan is a brilliant story-teller, and Zapatista Spring is impossible to put down. In this vivid account of democracy and solidarity in action, the pages overflow with humanity, wit, and the mountains and mud of Chiapas. This candid story should be read by anyone who has been inspired by the Zapatistas.”—Ben Dangl, author of Dancing with Dynamite

“Zapatista Spring doesn’t read like a history book, and Ryan stops short of producing a personal memoir. Instead, it feels like cracking open an undated personal diary, which, thanks to the author’s revolutionary sensibilities, storytelling skills, and sense of humor, translates into a hard-to-put-down read.”—Dawn Paley, journalist and research associate with the North American Congress on Latin America

“Are you ready to join the motherfuckin’ resistance? Well, this job is not for the squeamish or pampered, it’s tough fuckin’ work. Ramor Ryan doesn’t just speak theoretically about the Zapatistas, he lived and worked amongst them. This firsthand account of the most inspiring resistance movement of the turn of the century is a must read for anyone wanting to learn how the Zapatistas did it.”—Franklin López, Producer of subMedia.TV

“This book is a much-needed counterforce—sympathetic but relentless—to the formulaic proclamations of armchair Zapatistas everywhere. Weaving between story and theory, cynicism and mutual aid, development and despair, Ryan offers an insider’s view of the heart of shades at the core of the Zapatista solidarity movement.”—Richard J.F. Day, author of Gramsci is Dead

Ramor Ryan is an Irish writer and translator based in Chiapas, Mexico, and is the author of Clandestines: The Pirate Journals of an Irish Exil